Grass strip costly for bus exchange growth
A small strip of grass needed to enable a multimillion-dollar expansion to Christchurch’s bus interchange may cost the city council up to $1.5 million alone.
The interchange, an earthquake rebuild project that opened in 2015, will need to be upgraded in about seven years due to the expected increase in patronage from a major $115m investment in Christchurch’s bus system.
The investment into the city’s ailing and underutilised public transport system was signed off by four Canterbury councils late last year.
The proposal aimed to increase the frequency of the city’s buses to the point that people could just ‘‘turn up and go’’. Patronage is expected to jump 43 per cent – from an average of 38,350 trips per day to 54,790 trips – by 2028, the equivalent of about 20 million trips a year.
To cope with the increasing demand beyond 2028, the central city bus interchange will need to be upgraded and extended to add more bus bays.
The business case signed off by the Christchurch City Council in December recommends spending $1.5m to secure land and
$10.96m for the design and construction of the extension.
Christchurch City Council head of transport Richard Osborne said there were two concepts for the extension at this stage. The first concept allowed for at least five extra bus stops on the new land while the second concept would rearrange the Tuam St entrance to make buses get in and out more quickly.
Osborne said further ‘‘design and analysis’’ would be required once funding was ultimately confirmed by the council in its
10-year plan. The land the council needs for the extension is an 874-squaremetre grassed area between the interchange’s existing entry and exit lanes on Tuam St.
It is currently owned by Government-owned rebuild agency O¯ ta¯ karo Ltd and has a rateable value of $960,000. The city council is prepared to spend up to $1.5m on the land.
The bus interchange itself was previously owned by O¯ ta¯karo as it was built by the Government post-quake. In late 2019, the interchange transferred from O¯ ta¯karo ownership to the city council.
However, two small pieces of land surrounding the interchange, including the one the council wants to buy, were held on to by O¯ ta¯ karo.
Osborne said there had been ‘‘high level correspondence’’ with O¯ ta¯ karo regarding the land.
An O¯ ta¯ karo spokesman said the correspondence began when ownership of the interchange transferred to the council.
He said the value of a property was not O¯ ta¯karo’s sole focus when divesting central city land.
‘‘We consider both how a proposed development will deliver a positive outcome for the city and a good commercial outcome for the Crown.’’
Public and private parties had shown interest in the strip of grass previously, he said.
Osborne said the timeline for building the interchange extension would depend on frequency and scheduling changes made by Environment Canterbury (ECan), which manages the Metro bus network.
All of this work is part of the
$115m bus investment endorsed in December by the councils in Greater Christchurch: Selwyn, Waimakariri and Christchurch City councils, along with the regional council, ECan.
The investment would increase bus frequency on the city’s five core routes, four of which travel via the interchange.
Each would have ‘‘a turn-upand-go’’ model where a bus arrives every 71⁄2 minutes between
7am and 7pm on weekdays. Presently, these core routes have a 10 or 15-minute frequency.